Debt, Uneven Development and Capitalist Crisis in South Africa: from Moody’s macroeconomic monitoring to Marikana microfinance mashonisas
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 34; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01436597.2013.786283
ISSN1360-2241
Autores Tópico(s)Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism
ResumoAbstract The power, vulnerability and destructiveness of financial markets are out of control in South Africa, now among the most unequal, economically volatile and protest-intensive countries worldwide. While debt made itself felt in many sites, of interest in both criticising and promoting solutions is the ‘scale jumping’ required from South Africa’s national insertion into the world financial system, entailing the Reserve Bank setting very high interest rates, in turn leading to unpayable levels of consumer debt, and at a time when microfinance is suddenly discredited as a development strategy. Macro- and micro-financial problems fused in the course of the Marikana Massacre of August 2012, reflecting the local and global powers of the Moody’s rating agency and ‘mashonisa’ loan sharks. The over-indebted Marikana mineworkers, who led a strike which catalysed many wildcat strikes elsewhere, confronted the local crisis by displacing it into the national economy. This only heightened the contradictions that Moody’s punished with its September 2012 credit-rating downgrade. Without a genuine ‘debt relief’ solution at both scales, society will continue to unravel, as financialisation reaches its limits within one of the world’s most extreme cases of uneven and combined development. Notes 1 The literature on financialisation in South Africa includes several article-length political-economic studies that set the context for the shift from productive circuits in the context of capitalist crisis, including S Ashman, B Fine & S Newman, ‘The crisis in South Africa: neoliberalism, financialization and uneven and combined development’, in L Panitch, G Albo & V Chibber (eds), Socialist Register 2011: The Crisis This Time, London: Merlin Press, 2011; Ashman, Fine & Newman, ‘Systems of accumulation and the evolving minerals–energy complex’, in B Fine, J Saraswati & D Tavasci (eds), Beyond the Developmental State: Industrial Policy into the 21st Century, London: Pluto, 2013; and S Mohammed, ‘The state of the South African economy’, in J Daniel, R Southall, P Naidoo & D Pillay (eds), New South African Review, Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2010. The finest historical overview is B Fine & Z Rustomjee, The Political Economy of South Africa: From Minerals–Energy Complex to Industrialization, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. More recent book-length accounts include S Adams, Comrade Minister, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2001; N Alexander, An Ordinary Country, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2002; F Barchiesi, Precarious Liberation, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2011; P Bond, Cities of Gold, Townships of Coal, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000; Bond, Unsustainable South Africa, London/Pietermaritzburg: Merlin Press/University of Natal Press, 2002; Bond, Against Global Apartheid, London/Cape Town: Zed Books/University of Cape Town Press, 2003; Bond, Talk Left, Walk Right, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004; Bond, Elite Transition, London/Pietermaritzburg: Pluto Press/University of Natal Press, 2005; B Freund & H Witt (eds), Development Dilemmas in Post-apartheid South Africa, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010; G Hart, Disabling Globalization, Pietermaritzburg/Berkely, CA: University of Natal Press/University of California Press, 2002; M Legassick, Towards Socialist Democracy, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007; B Maharaj, A Desai & P Bond (eds), Zuma’s Own Goal, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2011; H Marais, South Africa: Limits to Change, London/Cape Town: Zed Books/University of Cape Town Press, 2000; Marais, South Africa: Pushed to the Limit, Johannesburg: Jacana, 2011; V Padayachee (ed), The Development Decade?, Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2006; S Terreblanche, A History of Inequality in South Africa, Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2003; and Terreblanche, Lost in Transformation, Johannesburg: kmm Review Publishing Company, 2012. 2 My own accounts are P Bond, ‘Uneven development’, in P O’Hara (ed), The Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, London: Routledge, 1999, pp 1198–1200, at http://www.marxmail.org/faq/uneven_development.htm; and Bond, ‘Finance capital’, in O’Hara, The Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, pp 345–347. These arguments, which have become more acute in recent years, follow from early 1980s studies of accumulation processes by David Harvey and the late Neil Smith. D Harvey, The Limits to Capital, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982; and N Smith, Uneven Development, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. 3 R Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968, at www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital 4 P Bond, Against Global Apartheid, pp 252–271. 5 S Ashman & B Fine, ‘Neo-liberalism, varieties of capitalism, and the shifting contours of South Africa’s financial system’, unpublished manuscript, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2012. 6 P Bond, ‘African economic claims and realities’, Africa Insight, 41(3), 2011, pp 30–45. 7 World Bank, The Changing Wealth of Nations, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011, at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ENVIRONMENT/Resources/ChangingWealthNations.pdf. 8 M Isa, ‘Moody’s warns wage deals could affect miners’ credit ratings’, Business Day, 20 September 2012. 9 R Derby, ‘Moody’s downgrade a no-confidence vote in Zuma’, Business Day, 28 September 2012. 10 A Cockburn, ‘The terrorists still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan’, Counterpunch, 16 February 2008, at http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/02/16/the-terrorists-still-at-ground-zero-7-world-trade-center-lower-manhattan/. 11 J Kiff, S Nowak & L Schumacher, Are Rating Agencies Powerful? An Investigation into the Impact and Accuracy of Sovereign Ratings, Working Paper WP/12/23, Washington, DC: imf January 2012, p 25. 12 Ibid, p 25. 13 Cited in Cockburn, ‘The terrorists still at Ground Zero’. 14 Ibid. 15 M Weisbrot, ‘Moody’s threat to downgrade US debt is political, not fiscal’, Guardian, 13 September 2012, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/13/moodys-threat-downgrade-us-debt-political-fiscal. 16 South African Press Association (sapa), ‘Moody’s downgrade “premature”’, Johannesburg, 28 September 2012. 17 S Mkokeli, ‘Mantashe warns on changes to state policy: anc secretary-general Gwede Mantashe says opposition to e-tolls, youth wage harms South Africa’s credit’, Business Day, 22 May 2012, at http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=172255. 18 Ibid. 19 S Ashman, B Fine & S Newman, ‘Amnesty international? The nature, scale and impact of capital flight from South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 37(1), 2011, pp 7–25; and Bond, Elite Transition. 20 Bond, Elite Transition; N Nattrass, ‘Post-war profitability in South Africa: a critique of regulation analysis in South Africa’, Transformation, 9, 1989, pp 66-80 and G Duménil & D Lévy, ‘Costs and benefits of neoliberalism: a class analysis’, unpublished paper, Cepremap, Paris, 2003. 21 Bond, Elite Transition. 22 Ibid. 23 ‘Economics focus: domino theory’, The Economist: Electronic Edition, 26 February 2009, at http://www.economist.com/node/13184631. The magazine further explained, ‘Economists used to pay most attention to the solvency of governments, and hence their debt-to-gdp ratios. But today, the biggest risk in the emerging world comes not from sovereign borrowing, but from the debts of firms and banks. As foreign capital dries up, they will find it harder to refinance maturing debts or to raise new loans…Large [current account] deficits need to be financed, but banking and portfolio inflows are now scarce, and even foreign direct investment, which used to be seen as less volatile, has fallen sharply this year…A useful measure of financing risk is short-term debt (due within 12 months) as a percentage of foreign-exchange reserves. Anything above 100 percent, implying that debts exceed foreign exchange, should ring alarm bells. The third indicator, the ratio of banks’ loans to their deposits, is one measure of the vulnerability of banking systems. When the ratio is over 1.0 [South Africa’s was 1.09 at the time], it means that the banks depend on borrowing, often from abroad, to finance domestic lending and so will be squeezed by the global credit crunch.’ 24 P Bond, ‘In “power” in Pretora’, New Left Review, 58, July–August 2009, pp 77–88. 25 ‘Caught in the downward current’, Economist Electronic Edition, 19 March 2009, at http://www.economist.com/node/13337869?zid=295&ah=0bca374e65f2354d553956ea65f756e0 26 R Davies, ‘Budget speech’, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Parliament, Cape Town, 23 March 2010, at http://www.trevenna.net/ipap/IPAP_Ministers_NA_Statement.pdf. 27 L Citron & R Walton, ‘International comparisons of company profitability’, Bank of England, London, 2002, at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/economic_trends/ET587_Walton.pdf. 28 World Bank, The Changing Wealth of Nations, p 201. 29 H Bhorat, C Van der Westhuizen & T Jacobs, Income and Non-income Inequality in Post-apartheid South Africa, Development Policy Research Unit Working Paper 09/138, London, 2009, p 8. 30 Ashman et al, ‘Amnesty international?’. 31 M Legassick, ‘Notes on the South African economic crisis’, Amandla!, Cape Town, 2009, at http://www.amandla.org.za 32 P Bond, ‘South Africa’s “developmental state” distraction’, Mediations, 24(1), 2008, pp 8–27. 33 M Gosling, ‘City may demand stadium money back’, Business Report, 4 February 2013, at http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/city-may-demand-stadium-money-back-1.1463438#.URCcnWezfFo. 34 One of the most comprehensive sources of reports is http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Marikana%20Massacre%20reports.pdf. 35 L Steyn, ‘Marikana miners in debt sinkhole’, Mail & Guardian, 7 September 2012. 36 R Derby, ‘Could debt costs be behind miners’ pay demands?’, Business Day, 14 September 2012. 37 M Rees, ‘Financially illiterate miners debt shocker’, Moneyweb, at http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-special-investigations/financially-illiterate-miners-debt-shocker-fraud-a 38 Ibid. 39 D Forslund, ‘Wages, profits and labour productivity in South Africa’, Amandla!, 24 January 2012, at http://www.amandlapublishers.co.za/special-features/the-wage-and-productivity-debate/1142-wages-profits-and-labour-productivity-in-south-africa-a-reply. 40 Steyn, ‘Marikana miners in debt sinkhole’. 41 Rees, ‘Financially illiterate miners debt shocker’. 42 G Davel, ‘Debt stress: a harmless cold or a deadly virus?’, Microfinance Blog, 14 February 2011, at http://microfinance.cgap.org/author/Gabriel-Davel/. 43 ‘SA a debt timebomb, warns expert’, Fin24, 29 January 2013, at http://www.fin24.com/Money/Debt/SA-a-debt-timebomb-warns-expert-20130129. 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